“…The ribose triphosphate moieties in both the dimers seem to hydrolyze either during dimerization due to steric hindrance or during silylation at 110 • C. The second possibility can be ruled out on the basis that several purine derivatives have been found to give products having ribose unit attached during silylation [38] and addition of 0.1 M HCl to the electrolyzed sample to convert the sodium salt into the free acid would further cause the cleavage of -N-glycosidic linkage as well documented in the literature [39]. Interestingly, during silylation all the reactive hydrogen atoms attached to nitrogen atoms are replaced with trimethylsilyl units to give the corresponding tetrasilylated C C dimer (16) and disilylated N N dimer (19) having m/z 558 and 414, respectively. On the other hand, the formation of C O O C bridged dimer (23) occurs due to the rapid dimerization of oxygen free radical specie (21), formed at C 8 position on 1e − , 1H + electrochemical oxidation of 2,8-dihydroxyinosine-5 -triphosphate (20).…”